


One Day More

by ocktorok



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-21
Updated: 2016-09-21
Packaged: 2018-08-16 09:08:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8096257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ocktorok/pseuds/ocktorok
Summary: Kylo laid one pale hand against the viewport and watched the space around it turn opaque with condensation.He would be there, soon.Would be with him, soon.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [versus_versus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/versus_versus/gifts).



> To my delightful [versus](http://archiveofourown.org/users/versus_a_blank_page/pseuds/versus_a_blank_page)  
> It's not a sweater-curse if it's early so Happy Birthday sweetheart <3

       It was cold. Technically. He knew that. Knew that for most people this was still a temperature suited for layers and heavy coats. He didn't feel it anymore. Hadn't really felt the cold for months. Hadn’t really felt _anything_ for months. Kylo laid one pale hand against the viewport and watched the space around it turn opaque with condensation. He would be there, soon.

       Would be with him, soon.

       He had been ensconced in a high security prison, though to Kylo it seemed more  a small planet. He had two cellmates in all the world, if they could be called that, with palace sized cells fit for their grand captives. One was a Baroness who’d removed and cannibalized the unborn from the Mothers of her own land. Another was a Bounty Hunter only known to Kylo as the Throne Breaker. Kylo did not know his crimes, nor did he care to. He was looking for the Emperor.

       Kylo found him with the dawn, dual suns of the prison-planet gently highlighting the house that hid him within. It was eight thirty-six in the morning, and Kylo wanted to apologize. He was late. He opened his mouth and Hux looked up from his spot at the kitchen table with such a glint in his eyes that the apology was silenced before it could well from Kylo’s lips.

       Sitting beside him, Kylo pulled his shirtsleeves over his fingertips. He’d wasted six minutes.  Closer to seven, now and he couldn’t help it, staring at Hux from the corner of his eye. Taking in all his sharp edges. His dewy green eyes. His painfully thin veneer of calm. They sat in silence, their thighs pressed together. Kylo wanted to scream.

       Scream himself hoarse that Hux had given up, that they should run, that they could fight this, somehow. But it would be without point. By this time tomorrow Hux would be gone and the only thing his fury would earn him was regret. That Hux would choose to spend his last day in this life with Kylo by his side only made Kylo want to follow after. Lemon and myrrh hung heavy in the air. The bitter scent of the raspberry on Hux’s toast.

       Breathing felt like choking.

       “You’d think you were the one sentenced to die,” Hux’s lofty tone set Kylo’s fingers to clench. His hair shifted over his eye as he turned, looking for a response that Kylo didn’t have. He arched a brow and Kylo couldn’t take it, shaking his head and pushing the locks away, kissing Hux hard enough to break the skin and Hux let him. Didn’t even complain when Kylo twisted his hands into the folds of his sweater. Soft. Moss colored. _Ugly_.

       “Oh,” Hux breathed against Kylo’s lips, “I see,” and Kylo thought he did. Thought he must have. Hux pressed his lips to Kylo’s eyelids and it stung, knowing that no one would ever get the chance to see how gentle he was capable of being. How much he could care, when given half a chance. Hux would never have wanted them to, anyway. The idea that the only life of importance Hux had arguably ever taken was _his own_ was second-place to a Republic bent on cleansing away any evidence that a war had ever happened. That there had ever been a war they had almost _lost_. They would come at eight thirty. A purposefully chosen time, designed to make sure Hux knew that, in spite of everything, he was altogether insignificant.

       He wasn’t.

       He was the Emperor.

       If there had ever been anyone who would have spoken for him, they were dead. There was Kylo, of course, and after all that had happened one would think his attempts to intervene would hold merit. That at the very least there would be a weight attributed to his words because of whose son he was.

       There wasn’t.

       Kylo’s repeated, desperate bargains, his threats, his _pleas_ for Hux’s life had been stonewalled. Hux was a symbol. A reminder to the people that things could be done _differently_ and he needed to be dealt with. Quickly, quietly, and permanently. The horrible truth remained that Hux was the only thing in Kylo's life that had ever really been his, and this mockery of a post-war Republic had seen fit to take him from him. Kylo couldn't save him.

       When Kylo had told him how he’d tried, how he’d _failed_ , Hux had acted as though he hadn't heard. Had drunk his coffee as though it hadn’t _mattered_  and Kylo politely hadn’t noticed the way his cup rattled against it's saucer. Hux’s submission rankled, but not his silence.

       Few words had ever been exchanged during their stolen meetings. They’d never needed them. Not after Kylo had spoken into Hux’s mind the first time, gasping and watching Hux’s eyes as he emptied himself inside him with a pained _I love you._

       It wasn’t something Hux ever said back.

       Kylo would have liked to have been able to pinpoint the exact moment that Hux had become everything to him, but he couldn’t. That wasn’t how it worked. The first time they came together war was raging through the stars around them and Hux had already felled planets in his stride. He had turned up in Kylo’s rooms on the Finalizer in the middle of the sleep cycle when sleep itself was a laughably rare commodity. Typically stubborn, smug, _obnoxious_ Hux, high on victory, had refused to leave and, somehow, fumbling in the darkness, vicious, poisonous words twisted and settled into a bizarre sort of camaraderie that left them both wide eyed and panting, trading furtive whispers of treason and plans for an uncertain future. Plans that, should daylight touch them and they crumble, would see them both struck low. Plans that had unknowable risk and an infinitely great reward.

       Hux had glared afterwards, pulled haughtily at his starched, well pressed uniform and told him it wouldn’t happen again. Kylo had laughed. He had already made his choice. Though, perhaps it was someone’s choice. Maybe in the beginning Hux had been sent to him. Or maybe he’d sought Kylo out for his own gain. There was no way, now, to know, and Kylo didn’t care. Whose decision it had been hadn’t changed anything, in the end.

       Hadn’t changed five years of what they _knew._ Hadn’t changed the way Kylo’s body reacted to his touch. Hadn’t changed the slope of Hux’s mouth or the manic shine of his eyes, or the way that sometimes, just sometimes, they were tender, and slow. The way that sometimes Hux looked at him as though getting under his skin and inside his body and watching him fall apart in his hands was the only thing Hux actually wanted. The only thing that mattered.

       Somehow, no one could imagine why Kylo cared. The Emperor’s Whore, they called him. As though he’d mindlessly clamored into Hux’s bed and burned his way across the stars as nothing more than an accessory. A pretty face. A trinket. It hurt like hell.

       It was uncommon for a prisoner to be left here for their last day, guards usually having already come to escort them to the main world for the last durations of their sentence, but Hux remained and they didn’t question it. It wasn’t as though he could leave. Kylo didn’t think he’d even tried. At least, this way, Hux wouldn’t be alone. 

       When Hux rose, graceful as ever, from his chair, Kylo followed, hands shoved in the pockets of his robes to keep from reaching out. From taking hold of him and not letting him go. When Hux paused, turning to look at Kylo as if he’d sensed his want and sighed, gently, as though he’d never seen him before, Kylo firmed his resolve. He wouldn’t. Not today. These hours didn’t belong to him. He watched Hux flit away the morning. Watched him walk around the sad shell of his final dominion with Kylo’s fingers curled in the hem of his sweater as he trailed after him down the halls. He batted lightly at the scruff on Hux's face until Hux laughed, swatting his hands away in playful annoyance.

       In a fit of madness, Kylo snatched his holopad right from his hands and refused to return it, teasing laughter echoing from the walls as he taunted Hux into chasing after him for it. Rounding corners and ducking into rooms until they were well and truly lost, Hux stole his breath and his kisses in a shadowed alcove that Kylo would remember for the rest of his life. In that way, they weren’t all that different.

       Hux pulled back and looked at him for a moment with such candid despair that Kylo recoiled, stricken. He never wanted to see that look on Hux’s face again. Kylo blanched at the thought and Hux scoffed, his guards shuttering back into place. Dust floated by on stale air.

       Hux drifted from room to room with a feigned sense of purpose that, like an intruder, Kylo could only observe. Running his fingers through the electrostatic holo portraits of people neither of them recognized, Hux stood in the center of what once must have been a fine ballroom, looking small and lost. It burned. Everything Hux was was combative. He’d never failed to fight for what he believed was his by right. His position. His rank. His Empire. Now Kylo watched him fail to fight for his life.

       His Emperor.

       His heart.

       Chest tight, Kylo held onto the doorframe and tried to silence the countdown beating away in his head. Searching for something, anything, to break this terrible silence, he clung to the idea that he hadn’t seen Hux eat anything in what felt like hours. He said so and Hux just smiled, green eyes softening. “That isn't important.”

       They must have been twenty feet apart. It felt like Hux was right next to him. “What is?”

       Hours later in a dust-coated sun-room that, Hux told him, looked like the one his mother sat in to watch over her gardens on Arkanis, Hux stretched out on a chaise and laid his head on Kylo’s thighs, offering a simple, "This."

       The contact was minimal at best but Hux had initiated it. Everything in Kylo raged for more, so much more, before it was too late, one last time, _please_. Kylo held fast to his restraint. Not this day. He ignored the lump that clotted his airways, ignored the fist that squeezed around his heart, ignored the burning in the corners of his eyes and knotted his fingers through Hux’s hair. It had grown longer. Unkempt. Hux almost smiled, pale lashes fluttering, and Kylo wished he could show this to the world. No one was as wholly evil as they claimed Hux was, and Kylo thought maybe Hux _did_ love him, though he’d never say it. He wanted to believe that Hux did.

       Kylo gradually stilled, panic taking him over that, in the warmth of the afternoon suns, with his skin heating pleasantly under Kylo’s hands, Hux had succumbed, soporific effect coaxing his eyes to close as he curled around Kylo and slept. Torn on Hux’s behalf that Hux would lose his last hours this way, and stilled by the soft, painful tendrils of pleasure that Hux could still draw comfort from him, even now -  Kylo let him.

       Hux blinked awake mere minutes before the central timepiece struck half past six. Kylo held his breath. Bleary and sluggish, Hux rubbed at his face with the back of his hand and all at once turned rigid, eyes sharp with fear. Not daring to touch him, Kylo eased his arms up on the back of the lounge as Hux sat up, smoothing his hair with short jerks of agitated fingers. Collected, Hux stood and offered Kylo his hand. “To watch the suns set,” he said, before strolling out into the grounds. He didn’t need to say ‘last.'

       It was radiant, all vibrant oranges bleeding into steel blues. Though of course, it would be, with its final rays casting Hux’s harsh angles in stark relief, staining his overly pale skin a mottled gold and highlighting his copper hair, acting still as a crown to replace the one that was taken from him. Leaning against his chest, Hux reached behind them to wrap Kylo’s arms around his waist as they sat and just watched, just _were_ , with Hux every now and then shifting his weight, suppressing his shivers under the guise of getting more comfortable. The time passed them by and Kylo was powerless to stop it. A humorless smile touched his lips. He would have all the time in the world to rage against it, tomorrow.

_I love you._

       Kylo didn’t need to say it. Hux laughed anyway. Or sobbed. Kylo held him tighter, whispered, “Sorry,” against his neck, as close as he could get to that distinctive _something_ in Hux that smelled like heated arguments and bloodied knuckles on ripped sheets.

       Hux rested his head on Kylo’s shoulder, folding his hands over his knees. “You’ve always been terrible with apologies.”

       “Sorry.” Automatic. Never regretted.

       Hux tipped his head back to look at him, green eyes pale-luminous. “Ren.”

       Kylo caught his breath. “Yeah?”

       Whatever it had been, Hux changed his mind, closing his mouth and shaking his head as he pulled Kylo to his feet. Kylo near stumbled on the fresh dew of the lawn and Hux caught him, steadying hand at his chest and fingers curling around his arm. Sharp reflexes, and effortless equilibrium, he was so put-together it hurt. He should have been falling apart like Kylo was. As they wandered through the house Kylo could hear the faint whisper of Hux's thoughts in his head. Last. Last.

       Sitting beside Hux on the bed, Kylo’s anticipation was stifling. He hoped it didn’t show on his face, but it didn’t matter. Hux always did know exactly how to read him. He acquiesced to being held without a word, drawing Kylo to wrap himself around Hux so tightly it must have been painful but Hux didn’t say anything. Hux’s heart beat sure and steady against Kylo's and it felt like a decadence so Kylo luxuriated in it. In his mind he gathered everything he knew of Hux, pulling in his smiles and his sneers, his malice and his cruelty, his delight and his unyielding devotion as something to keep. Something to hold onto after he’d gone. _Soon, Hux, and I won’t survive it._

       He couldn’t decide if he wanted to be sweet, or brutal. Couldn’t tell if he’d rather the sympathetic shield of pain or the raw torment of pleasure. Hux decided for him, removing their clothes with steadfast silent efficiency and stretching out beside him, turning his head to just look, fingers curled around upward palms by his face. Kylo couldn’t bring himself to question Hux’s compliance. Not now. Not any more. 

       Instead he focused on memorizing Hux’s scent. His taste. The defiance of the surrender in his eyes. The way they darkened when Kylo touched him. There was nothing that needed to be said. Just blunt nails and rough whimpers. Just Hux. Just Kylo. Last. 

       He wavered on the edge of his control when he finally sunk home. Stilted groans leaked through gritted teeth and Kylo could have spent the whole day this way. It didn’t matter now.  He wanted to hurt Hux. Wanted Hux to hurt him. To leave a hole, somewhere, raw and bleeding and angry so he could feel it and know Hux had been there. No one had ever understood this. If they had, maybe Hux wouldn’t be here. Maybe he wouldn’t be trying to say goodbye without saying goodbye. Hux dragged him deeper with ragged nails and spread thighs and Kylo, as ever, complied, shuddering open mouthed breaths against Hux’s lips with Hux’s air pushing back into his lungs. Make it painful. Make it last. It didn’t matter.

       Just this.

       Kylo dragged Hux to him, pulled him over his thighs and turned his head with the nip of his teeth until Hux caught his own eyes in the mirror. Hux gasped. His nails dug into Kylo’s shoulders. Thighs tightened. Hux watched them, watched himself, panted breath glossing over Kylo’s skin. Curled toes and the slow grind of their hips where they came together. Hux watched them, and Kylo watched Hux.

       Hux had bragged, once, that Kylo would never see him cry. As they moved slowly, together, inexorable and intertwined over crumpled silk, his eyes shimmered. He squeezed them shut and buried his face in Kylo’s neck, hands sliding down Kylo’s arms to clutch at his hands, their fingers entwined.

       Kylo whispered his name, wanted Hux to look at him. Hux shook his head, denied Kylo his face and bore down onto him, shattering the slow, building ache in favor of a fervid and tempestuous storm that built around Kylo with each clench of Hux’s body and, drawing Hux closer, Kylo held him, crushed him to his chest between his arms and came into his body with a hoarse sob.

_I love you._

       Gripping Kylo’s fingers so hard his bones creaked, Hux followed, snarling “Kylo,” from behind his teeth. The first time. 

       When Hux hid his face in Kylo’s chest, threw an arm over his stomach and closed his eyes in a pretense of sleep, Kylo let him. Let him so he could say all the things he’d wanted to when he’d still had the time. Let him so Hux could pretend not to hear. Kylo wondered if he’d cry for Hux when Hux wasn’t there to mock him for it.

       The sky lightened beyond the window, pink fingers of dawn unfurling across the room while Hux lay there, legs still tangled in smooth sheets and face still pressed against Kylo’s chest. He tried to tell himself, tell _Kylo,_ that he wasn’t scared, but Kylo didn’t believe it. He felt sick.

       It was seven fifty eight.

       “I thought," Hux cleared his throat, continuing softly as though it were a secret, "I thought I wouldn't care. About dying. But I’m not ready for this to end," quieter, "Not just yet.”

       Kylo’s eyes burned. He held Hux just that much tighter, mouthing at damp red hair to get at Hux’s skin, pressing his lips to whatever part of Hux’s face he could reach. He turned in Kylo's arms at eight thirteen, propped up a little to see Kylo’s face, bright eyes huge over a lopsided smile. “I keep wondering if maybe they’ll change their minds.” An undignified pitch. “Right at the last second, like they do in the holos. Do you think?”

      "Maybe." Kylo couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t look anywhere else.

       Hope was dangerous. They had nothing left. 

       Four minutes and twenty six seconds.

       Kylo sucked Hux’s lip between his teeth and, for the first time, smelled his fear. It was detrimental. Of all the things Hux had ever been around Kylo, he had never been _afraid_. He poured everything he was into that kiss, lips and tongue and teeth; love and fear and loathing and the irrevocable knowledge that he was Kylo’s and Kylo was his. Kylo didn’t know who was meant to be comforting who.

       Hux withdrew from the safety of Kylo’s arms to dress and Kylo didn’t stop him. Movements fluid and well-exercised, Hux donned something smart and stylish in a form-fitting black and grey. A nod to their beginnings. It felt like a betrayal when Kylo dragged on his old, faded things and watched Hux from the edge of the bed.

       When the guards arrived, coming into the gilded prison without so much as a knock, Hux was regarding Kylo in the mirror. One slender brow arched, forever judging. Forever himself. When they touched him, Kylo’s blood boiled. Hux, for his part, didn’t flinch.

       It was amusing, in a morbid way, when they tried to stop Kylo from going with him. They drew back at the snarl that ripped from his throat, fingers of his right hand spread and it seemed that somehow the Force was a threat they had forgotten. Emperor’s Whore indeed. It was eight twenty-nine.

       Hux startled when Kylo took his hand. Didn’t pull it away. A faceless mass of a species took his other arm and, fleetingly, Kylo wondered if the person he once was would have dared to jerk Hux back to him, to ignite his saber, kill the lot of them, and just run. The worst part is that Kylo no longer had a saber with which to even try.

       No.

       The worst part is that he thinks Hux would have just stood there if he _had_.

       The room they were brought to was sterile, symmetrical. Could even have been called clinical if it weren’t for the mass of camera wielding beings, present in theory to assure it was done correctly, this distasteful business of ending Hux’s life. In reality they drove out en masse to see the Great Emperor made into a hollow caricature of himself. Everyone’s eyes shifted, alight with the promise of scandal to see Kylo beside him. His reputation preceded. He squeezed Hux’s hand once, twice, and was still.

       The Mad Dog wouldn’t bite.

       Kylo held onto Hux’s hand until they lead him away. Their eyes met for a heartbeat of a moment when Hux’s fingers slipped from Kylo’s, and Kylo broke. Hux stood straight, shoulders back as he walked with purpose and an air of malevolence to the chamber, snide and superior to the last and Kylo couldn’t take his eyes off him.

 _Promise you won’t watch_ , Hux had demanded when the room had dimmed and Kylo couldn’t see his face, _Swear you’ll spare me that. I don’t want you to remember me... that way._

       Looming over the spectators in the back of the room, eyes dry and jaw clenched to the point of pain, Kylo broke his promise. He wanted to see if maybe, right at the last second, they’d change their minds. Like they did in the holos. Even as they prepared the needle for Hux’s veins, he wanted to see if maybe they’d come to their senses, call the whole thing off.

       They didn’t.

       Kylo stood there, after, for what felt like forever. For what felt like no time at all. He was afraid to move, a nameless terror that grew marrow deep, like somehow if he stayed exactly where he was then this wasn’t real. Like if he stood there long enough Hux would open his eyes and look at him and - Hoards of people shuffled past, jostling Kylo from his place as they discussed their itineraries, filing through the doors as though what had just occurred was nothing of any particular consequence. It had just been Hux’s life, after all.

       When Kylo turned his back, left Hux behind him and slumped, clod-footed, out into the day, he’d expected it might be raining.

       It wasn’t.

       Kylo closed his eyes against the morning suns, swallowing air and failing to put  one foot in front of the other until a much familiar voice purred in his head, jolting him from his stupor with a condescending, _‘Don’t being so pathetic, Ren_ ’ and a sharp burst of pain that burned acidic in places Kylo hadn’t known were there.

       Latching on to the raw agony of that wound, Kylo flexed his fingers and drew to his full height, sweeping out into the street with the spark of vengeance just beginning to crackle in his eyes. He would never see Hux again, or touch him, or hear him, but he could _remember_ , and that could never be taken from him. He didn’t know where to start, wasn’t sure where to turn, but winding through the alleyways and following an unknown path, Kylo was sure he would figure it out. Everything depended on the next twenty four hours.

       One day more.

**Author's Note:**

> [What was I supposed to call it?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otZKdoHs06g)


End file.
